Eve’s Italian was still pretty non-existent, but even she understood the word ‘ospedale’. ‘Luca, I am not going to hospital!’
‘Sì, cara,’ he contradicted grimly. ‘You are!’
She stared him out. ‘No,’ she said stubbornly. ‘And anyway, the baby isn’t due for another two weeks. I want to go home!’
His impotent fury that she could not and would not be persuaded—he could tell that from the stubborn set of her mouth—was softened slightly by her instinctive use of the word ‘home’. He nodded. ‘Very well,’ he agreed softly. ‘We will go home. But the doctor will visit, and he will decide.’ He saw her open her mouth to protest. ‘He will decide, Eve,’ he said, in a voice which broached no argument.
‘It’s a waste of his time!’
But Eve was wrong and Luca and the doctor were right. It was not a false alarm. The baby was on the way.
Everything became a fast and frantic blur, punctuated only by sharp bursts of pain which became increasingly unbearable.
‘I want an epidural!’ she gasped as they wheeled her into the delivery room.
But it was too late for an epidural, too late for anything. She was having her baby and the midwife was saying something to her frantically, something she didn’t understand.
‘Spinga, signora! Spinga, ora!’
‘Luca! I’m so scared! What is she saying?’
‘She is saying, push, cara. And you must not be scared. Trust me, I am here with you.’
‘Oh! Ow!’
She gripped his hands, her fingernails tearing into his flesh, but he scarcely noticed. ‘You’re doing fine,’ he coaxed. ‘Just fine.’ He snapped something rapid in Italian at the midwife, who immediately began speaking in slow, fractured English.
‘One more push, signora. One more. Take a deep breath and…’
‘Now, cara!’ urged Luca softly as he saw something in her face begin to change. ‘Now!’
Eve pulled her hand away from his, her head falling back as she made one last, frantic little cry and Luca moved just in time to see his baby being born.
‘Here’s your baby,’ said the midwife and she deftly caught the infant.
He stared. A little wet black head and a long, slithery body. The world seemed to stand still as the midwife sprang into action, cutting the cord, wiping a plug of mucus from the little nose.
Eve half sat up in bed, her damp hair plastered all over her face, watching the midwife as if nothing else on the planet existed right then.
For one long and breathless moment, there was silence, and then the infant opened its lungs and let out a baleful and lusty cry and Eve burst into tears of relief as the midwife held it up triumphantly.
‘You have a son, signore, signora!’ and she swaddled him in a blanket and placed him straight on Eve’s breast.
Luca turned away, feeling the unfamiliar taste of tears at the back of his throat, but Eve needed strength now, not weakness. He sucked in a deep breath as he tried to compose himself. He had watched her suffer, had heard her cry out in pain and seen the fear on her face as the overwhelming spasms had brought the baby from her body. For the first time in his life he had been helpless, the experience of it all making everything else he had seen in his life somehow insignificant, but that should not really surprise him. For this was a miracle. Truly, a miracle.
Joyfully, Eve stared down at the baby as it suckled from her breast and she glanced over at Luca, but he was staring out of the window. She needed him right now, but her needs were no longer paramount. And suddenly nothing else seemed to matter. Motherhood had kicked in.
She studied the tiny creature intently. ‘Hello, baby,’ she said softly. ‘Hello, Oliviero. Oliviero Patricio.’ Funny how the name they had chosen seemed to suit him perfectly. She put her finger out and a tiny little fist curled round it. Maybe because everything about him was perfect.
Luca turned round, still shaken, and stared at the tableau the two of them made. The child suckled at her breast and she was making soft little cooing sounds. She looked like a Madonna, he thought—as if the two of them had created their own magic circle, excluding the world and all others.
Didn’t men sometimes say that they felt excluded when a baby was born? And that was when the relationship was as it should be. His mouth tightened, and he felt bitterly ashamed at the selfishness of his thoughts. Eve had given birth to a beautiful son, he thought. His son. And his heart turned over.
Eve saw him watching her, and felt suddenly shy, unsure how to deal with these big, new emotions. ‘Would you…would you like to hold him?’ she asked.
‘He’s not still hungry?’
The midwife laughed. ‘A child of this size will always be hungry! Hold him, signore—let him know who his father is!’